
Australia's healthcare industry is set to benefit from a significant $6.4 million government grant aimed at bolstering cybersecurity. CI-ISAC Australia has been selected as the recipient of an Australian Government $6.4 million grant to create a health-specific, information-sharing and analysis centre for Australia’s healthcare industry. Recent cyber-attacks on Australian healthcare organisations, including those targeting health funds and hospitals, have led the Australian Government to prioritise the health sector, by identifying it as the first to receive sector specific funding.
Impact of Cyberattacks In 2023, the global healthcare industry reported the most expensive data breaches for the 13th year in a row, at an average cost of AUD$10.93 million, almost double that of the financial industry, which ranked second, with an average cost of $5.9 million. Currently, Australia’s health sector comprises organisations such as public and private hospitals (approximately, 750 government hospitals and 650 private hospitals), health insurance providers, medical clinics (approximately, 6,500 general practitioner clinics), as well as many more health and medical-related third-party suppliers and vendors.
Cybersecurity for Healthcare Providers
With the Australian Government grant, CI-ISAC has created a new Health Cyber Sharing Network (HCSN), which will focus on enabling Australia’s health sector organisations to collaborate and break down information silos, enabling the exchange of valuable cybersecurity threat information more quickly, within a secure and confidential environment. CI-ISAC provides a cyber ‘neighbourhood watch’ for Australian health providers to share relevant information on cyber threats, while also benefiting from insights gained from across other critical infrastructure sectors.
The Health Cyber Sharing Network aims to better equip health sector organisations to manage and mitigate current and emerging cybersecurity threats. With health and medical organisations joining and participating in CI-ISAC’s Health Cyber Sharing Network, the cyber threat intelligence that is shared into the network by these organisations will not only support the overall improvement of cyber resilience across Australia’s health sector, but will also further support Australia’s Critical Infrastructure organisations more broadly, which have interdependencies across the health sector.
Immediate Benefits of Signing-Up
To kickstart the Health Cyber Sharing Network, CI-ISAC is inviting eligible health and medical organisations and their suppliers to participate by providing a complimentary CI-ISAC membership for 12 months to join and participate in this new cybersecurity information-sharing network. By joining the network, new health members will get access to the depth and breadth of CI-ISAC’s current Critical Infrastructure member base, providing health organisations with valuable closed-source, cross-sectoral cyber threat intelligence information from organisations with high cyber maturity.
Who Is The CI-ISAC?
The Critical Infrastructure - Information Sharing and Analysis Centre is a non-profit that facilitates collaboration and the bidirectional sharing of cyber threat intelligence within a trusted, industry-led environment. CI-ISAC’s current members span Australia's 11 Critical Infrastructure sectors, including government, local government, higher education, and industries including energy, water, telecommunications, financial services, data storage and processing, healthcare, and transport.
Upcoming Information Session
With the anticipated launch of the Health Cyber-Sharing Network, Global Tech Partners is hosting an information session at Melbourne University on the topic of cybersecurity for SMBs, with a special focus on the medical and healthcare sector. The event will feature keynote speaker, Helaine Leggat, who is an Attorney at Law, CISSP, CISM, CIPP, CIPT, FIP, GAICD and Managing Partner of ICTLC Australia. She is also a director at the CI-ISAC. The event will be at 5 PM on the 20th of February, and hosted by Melbourne Connect. Address: Melbourne University Lvl 2,
700 Swanston St, Carlton. Pick up your tickets via the following link:
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